After two years of teasingly drip-feeding us tracks (most of
which didn’t make the final cut), a lot of tracklist rejigging and more name
changes than Prince (first So God Help Me,
then SWISH, then Waves and now The Life of
Pablo), Kanye has finally decided to release his new album. But despite the
long and drawn-out cooking process, it still feels half-baked.
‘Ima fix Wolves’ the
rapper vowed on Twitter soon after the LP dropped – not that this particular track
needs fixing. It's other spots on the album that lack polish – the shaky
auto-tune at the end of ‘FML’, the disjointed beat backing ‘Famous’, the outro of ‘Hours’
that seems to trails off for hours, the end of ‘Fade’ that contrastingly seems
to cut abruptly short (given the track title, wouldn’t a fade-out have been
sensible?).
Already the Tidal version has been botched after someone
accidentally uploaded the track ‘Facts’ twice instead of including the closer
‘Fade’. Given the news that Kanye might further edit this album, we may end up
with several versions of the album floating around on the interwebz. This is
not a good thing as some people seem to think. Kanye has not ‘reinvented the
concept of an album’. Out of sheer clumsiness and indecision, he has simply
released an unfinished product, and whilst it’s nice to see him attempting to
fix it, I can’t help but feel that the damage is already done. It’s like
selling a chair and then realising one of the legs was missing. It’s like
handing in an essay and then asking to change it when the marks come back.
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| Kanye's new album |
I’ve never been the biggest Ye fan in the world (that
accolade belongs to Kanye himself), but I have always respected the wild wild
West for being the creative spirit that he is. He doesn’t cater to pop
appeal – he’s an artist, much like Pablo Picasso after whom this LP is
christened, albeit without the stripy shirt.
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| Pablo Picasso |
After all, despite being undercooked, this is a dish with a
lot of interesting and imaginative flavours in it. The beats for one are
brilliantly diverse and almost always left-field. ‘Feedback’ turns ordinarily
tuneless guitar feedback into something truly tuneful. ‘Freestyle 4’
incorporates eerie strings and offbeat wooping synths creating something truly
suspenseful. Then there’s ‘I Love Kanye’ which doesn’t have any instrumental at
all – instead serving as an inventive a capella track about how his fans perceive
him. I expected vomit-inducing narcissism but in fact it’s one of the more
humble tracks here.
Rather encouragingly, there are several other glimpses of lyrical
humility along the way. ‘Real Friends’ is a track about how he hasn’t always
been a great friend, even slightly self-deprecating to a point: ‘I’m always blaming you, but what’s sad
you’re not the problem’. And ‘Father Stretch My Hands pt. 2’ sees the musician
realising he’s much like his dad, his work taking priority over friends and
family: ‘Sorry I didn’t call you back,
same problem my father had’. Hearing Kanye admit his mistakes and value his
relationships with family and friends makes me realise that the dude does
actually have a conscience. Perhaps he’s human after all.
Sadly, these moments of heart aren’t enough to outweigh Kanye’s
titanic asshole ego, which dominates the rest of this album. When he’s not
trying to justify his arrogance with arrogance: ‘name me one genius who ain’t crazy’, he’s poking fun at fellow
celebrities and resorting to low-brow misogyny: ‘I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex/ Why? I made that bitch
famous’.
Indeed, there are times when Kanye can be so outrageous that
he’s funny – for example the ‘a blowjob’s
better than no job’ line on 30 Hours. However, these moments of true wit
are juxtaposed with an equal amount of bad and corny lines. One of Kanye’s
worst habits is repeating the same bar twice as if trying to add some divine extra
meaning to it, but quite often these lines aren’t special enough to be uttered once:
‘I made that bitch famous/ I made that
bitch famous’. And then there’s the track ‘Facts’ which sees the Adidas
partner throwing one big, biased, goofy tantrum at Nike. He’s changed the beat
on the album version from the original single version, but really I think the
beat wasn’t the problem: ‘couches,
couches, couches, couches, which one should I pick?/ I need extra deep, I like
my bitches extra thick’.
Needless to say, I’m not happy about the ‘gossiping, no-pussy-getting bloggers’
line either, although I’m not going to lose sleep over it as I’m actually quite
satisfied in that department.
Anyway, let’s wrap up this rap review by agreeing that Kanye
has made some baby steps towards being more likable since Yeezus – he’s proclaiming to be a genius now, not a God. The rapper
does attempt to show some honest introspection and he doesn’t sacrifice his artistic
integrity, crafting some truly creative songs. However, The Life of Pablo isn’t the holistic piece that former Kanye albums
have been – it’s messy and piecemeal. And although somewhat subdued, Kanye’s
megalomaniac side still can’t help but rear it’s ugly head.
★★★☆☆
TRACK TASTER: